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very, very rare early jazz guitar

only 53 made with round sound-
holes, the rest made with f-holes,
and probably only a handfull remain

this guitar was used by the guitarist/
    banjoist in the Turk Murphy Band in
    ï30's & 40's in San Francisco, and
    is featured on Phil Emerson's CD:
    "Phil's Guitars"

Martin's top of the line archtop when
made

violin inspired, light ice-tea sunburst
finish

carved spruce top; round sound-
hole with multi-striped purfling

Brazilian rosewood back & sides

maple neck

ebony fretboard with abalone
"snowflake" inlay

vertical "C F Martin" headstock inlay

creme & black 5-ply binding on top;
3-ply on back & headstock; single creme binding on fretboard

torteloid pickguard with striped inlay

adjustable rosewood bridge

trapeze tailpiece

introduced 1931; discontinued 1934

Jim Washburn and Richard Johnston,
in their definitive book "Martin Guitars",
had this to say about Martin archtops:

     "Gibson's Lloyd Loar-designed L-5, introduced in 1922, defined the modern arch-top guitar and set a standard other manufacturers were hard-pressed to match.  Many certainly tried, however.  By the time the Martin company had entered the arch-top market a decade later, it was a growing and refined field, with everyone from discount-king Harmony to banjomaker Epiphone to master builder John D'Angelico producing them.
     "The L-5 and its progeny borrowed even more from the violin-building principles that Orville Gibson had used with his turn-of-the-century oval-soundhole arch-tops.  Like the violin, whose f-holes it now appropriated, the L-5 had a spruce top carved so that the bridge rested on an arch that curved down to the instrument's sides.  The back was similarly carved, and the back and sides were typically maple.  And, as on both the violin and Martin's earliest Stauffer-inspired guitars, the fingerboard extended over the body rather than joining it.  The guitars tended toward the huge¿in 1934 Gibson introduced the 18-inch-wide Super 400¿so guitarists had at least a fighting chance of being heard amid the horns of a jazz orchestra.
     "Martin's arch-tops give every indication that the company entered the market grudgingly.  For its initial C-1, C-2, and C-3 models in 1931, the company essentially took a 000 and put an arched top on it, with the round soundhole that competitors were abandoning in favor of f-holes.  (Martin followed suit with an f-hole version by 1934.)  The back was nearly flat¿only slightly more curved than on Martin's flat-tops¿and was Brazilian rosewood (or mahogany on the C-1), as were the sides. Unlike most other arch-top makers, Martin glued the fingerboard to the top instead of suspending it.  Because of the body's curious mix of flat-top and arch-top characteristics, the necks had to be set at an awkward angle that did no favors to either tone or playability.  And, unlike guitars from other makers, Martin's arch-tops were a mere 15 inches wide until the modestly larger 16 inch F-size was introduced in 1935.
     "While moderate for an arch-top, the 16-inch width was bigger than even Martin's new Dreadnoughts and was differently contoured.  Decades later, this inspired some guitarists to have their F-series Martins converted into flat-tops (which, in turn, inspired Martin to issue its similar M-series guitars in 1977).
     "At the time, though, arch-tops didn't do too badly for the company, accounting for 1,046 of the 3,595 guitars Martin sold in 1935.  And the company gave some models features that were new to Martin and would later adorn Martin's standard models.  The celluloid black and white lines bordering the tops of higher-model arch-tops would replace the herringbone trim on flat-top Style 28s a decade later.  Both the hexagonal pearl position markers and the pearl "C. F. Martin" headstock logo made famous on the late 1930s D-45s got their start on the F-series arch-tops in 1935.
     "....
     ".... Martin arch-tops showed up on few bandstands.  By 1938 sales of the lower-priced arch-tops were only a third of what they'd been three years earlier, while the fancy F-series was dead in the water.  Gibson had issued a new, larger version of its L-5 and L-7 in 1936, and this "advanced" 17-inch-wide body, with similar Epiphones in hot pursuit, probably sounded the death knell for Martin's arch-top, flat-back hybrids.  Though the restrictions of the Second World War were an incredible nuisance on most fronts, it did give Martin a good excuse to get out of the arch-top business."